Some Great Video Podcasts

How do I stay sane between chem exams and bio labs? Watching and listening to podcasts, of course. If you don't know, podcasts are free audio or video shows that are pre-recorded and often focus on a specific topic or genre. While the audio portion has been around for a while...basically radio shows were the first incarnation of what we now call podcasts...video podcasting (similar and sometimes the same as Vloging) has really taken off in the last few years. This is mostly because video-enabled phones and portable media players have become much more popular. If you're one of those new owners of a video playing device, you're in luck! I've been upping my podcast count recently and I have compiled a little list of my top video podcast picks:

FIrst off, there are a number of staples such as -
Rocketboom - a video podcast which runs down interesting news, important events and memes, and often offers some pretty enlightening social commentary (also the host is a hot chick).
Ask A Ninja - a pretty self-explanatory vlog that involves a ninja answering questions about the universe while promising to kill you...you should already know by the end of this sentence if this show is for you.
Diggnation - this is basically thirty minutes of Kevin Rose (founder of DIgg.com) and Alex Albrecht talking about interesting stories on Digg and pretty much anything else...all while getting slightly intoxicated...it's kind of an acquired taste
Geekbrief.TV - a cool little show about technology for people who are specifically into cutting-edge gadgets...it can be a tad silly at time, but again...hot chick!

Beyond these, which you'll find about 8 seconds after you start looking for iPod fodder, there is one newish video podcast that I wanted to feature: EPIC-FU.

EPIC-FU (which just changed its name from JETSET), is a weekly video podcast that talks about everything from the internet to music to pop culture in general. While I've always found this model to be a bit too much like a teen magazine, the EPIC-FU team really pulls it off nicely. Their reviews of websites and bands are great and the camera-work is very eye-catching (reminds me of zefrank). On top of all that...HOT CHICK! But don't just take my word for it, here's an embed of one of their most recent shows (if you watch the whole show, I bet you'll subscribe):
Note: a wee bit of profanity, just so ya know....

If you didn't watch...go back, you missed West Side Story as a zombie movie...

You seem to have...questions...

• Are there tons more great video podcasts? Of course, you think these are all I watch????
• Are there even more audio-only podcasts? Yep, pretty much every interest group has at least a handful to its name.
• Why don't all podcasts have hot chicks? I don't know.
• Do I have any more time to list these things off? No :(

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Bonus Feature: The Dvorak Keyboard

I just found out about this interesting little piece of keyboard technology and I wanted to share it with you. It's quick, EASY, and might just become your favorite way to personalize your usage of your keyboard. I've typed the following sentence without the aid of the QWERTY layout.

"I'm typing this sentence with the Dvorak keyboard layout."

Ok, I'll admit that took me about two minutes to type that line, but the cool thing is that I in fact was able to do it at all, without downloading any new keybindings to my Dell (though it would work on a Mac or even a Linux machine). The Dvorak system was designed in the last century to replace the really inefficient and stressful QWERTY system (that's the keyboard layout you're probably using right now...your top row of keys spells the name). The new system was based on how people actually use the keyboard and was also made to emphasize easier keystrokes. It never caught on as a major system, but it was added to the SI system and can be found on any computer made today.

I plan to make learning this better layout my new project and with the aid of some built-in hotkeys, I can switch back any time I want. Of course I learned all this stuff from somewhere and I'll direct your attention to The Dvorak Zine, a fun little cartoon strip that has lots and lots of info and tips about using the Dvorak system.


Good luck and have fun defying QWERTY!

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Give a Writer a Break!

Well, I almost feel silly writing about this event, simply because any one of you can just turn on your TVs and BAM, you'll figure it out pretty quick. If you change the channel to the major networks during prime-time (or you watch soaps), you'll notice only re-runs during mainstream Fall viewing. If you switch over to the news, you'll notice that there is a nation-wide writers strike going on. If you watch only sports, well that's what I'm here for.

First of all, the strike has been ordered by the Writers Guide of America (WGA), which is the union that every writer in Hollywood belongs to. The strike began on November 5th and abruptly stopped all writing, meeting about writing, and in some cases (like with writer/producers) production as well. While there was some lead-time on this strike and the studios had the ability to prepare a few more scripts than normal, many shows that are written daily, such as soaps and daytime TV, have already become vast marathons of re-runs.

I'm sure that those of you who are just hearing about this are asking yourselves a few questions...are MY favorite shows affected?...is this strike thing really universal (are all writers really striking)?...won't this be over soon so I can get back to watching my favorite shows? The answers are pretty much yes, yes, and who knows. Pretty much any show that needs people to write up a script for is will soon be out of new content, if it hasn't already. The union is very large and over 4000 writers showed up in front of FOX networks when it was their turn to get a taste of the picket. Really, I personally haven't seen any indications of major strike-breaking or scabbing and I think that you will come to understand why as I lay out the
WGA's argument for the strike.

First of all, I'm sure you have already figured out that it's about the money. Writers have a very odd way of making a living. They get paid for what they write and then they get paid for any time that work is broadcast (including reruns) and for copies of that work sold on DVD. Writers actually had to strike before just to get paid for reruns. Anyway, this residual system is very important for writers, because most writers are out of work most of the time. Writers work for the TV stations and even a very successful show is canceled at some point. Residuals help keep writers afloat while they find a new project to join up with.

Now, more and more content is being put up on the internet. This realm of "new media" has ads and viewers, just like broadcast television, but the writers are receiving NOTHING for this form of broadcast. Also, writers are still trying to regain a part of the cut they are supposed to be getting for DVD purchases. In the past, writers gave up 80% of their cut in order to grow the VHS market (this was when home video was just beginning as a technology) with the understanding that that cut would be given back once the market was healthy. Now, that cut has been extended to DVDs and will probably happen to online purchases like those from iTunes. In short, the writers are simply trying to get back the residuals that were promised to them and to ensure that in the future, as more and more TV goes online, that they will be able to reap the bounty of their shows.

There are some great sites that are following the strike, but the best source is coming from UnitedHollywood.com, which is kind of the heartbeat of the strike's internet presence. Also, I HIGHLY suggest you watch this YouTube video that describes the strike's historic implications in a clear and concise way.

Personally, I'm a bit sad that the strike had to happen now. I have been getting into a lot of great shows this season and I'm upset that they may be cut short because of the strike. Heroes may be cut from 23 to 11 episodes this season and the gap-filler series, Heroes: Origins, may have been tossed out entirely. Also, The Office, Desperate Housewives, Lost, 24, and many others will be suffering from the strike. From what I understand, if the strike goes beyond two weeks, every network's seasons will be completely screwed up for quite a while.

That being said, I really support the writers, because without them, there would be no great shows at all. This isn't just some political/corporate showdown between the union and the studios, the writers clearly feel very strongly about this and even those who may lose their jobs because of it are standing strong at the picket line.

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Buzz Out Loud "Appearance"

Hey everybody, sorry to have been away for so long, but sometimes I do actually do have academic demands to fulfill (in between visits to Digg). Anyway, the iPhone part II will be coming soon, but here is a little interlude before that....

I am an officer in a club here at Mason and we were trying to organize a movie night. The idea cropped up as almost an afterthought while we were on a trip, so we didn't expect the planning to be a big deal. As it happens, this couldn't have been further from the case. We had no trouble getting the movie, 28 Days Later, because our advisor is a faculty member and simply checked it out of the media center in the JC. It was when we tried to find a place to view the movie that we ran into trouble.

We initially went to Housing and asked to reserve one of the lounges or maybe the cinema in Eisenhower. As soon as they learned that we planned to watch a movie and didn't have a license for it, they barred us from using their facilities. I initially thought we had a case in the mighty "Fair Use Doctrine," which gives certain rights to media users that are contained in their ownership of a copy of something. For instance, watching a movie at your home with a few friends (who did not pay for any part of the movie) is not specifically "allowed," but has been OKed by Fair Use decisions. I figured that we fell into the "educational exemption" for Fair Use, which is commonly used by teachers when they want to show a movie to their class. We are an educational organization that is linked to a professional organization as well. After some research, it seems that you only get some sort of protection in Fair Use if you are "a teacher," "presenting the work as part of a pre-designed lesson plan," and four other strict guidelines that pretty much restrict the Fair Use exemption to classrooms alone.

With this sad state of affairs recognized, I quickly realized that the hosts of Buzz Out Loud would probably LOVE to hear of my plight and might even have some insight. I sent off a voicemail (in MP3 form...it is a podcast after all) to their show and they aired it. In fact they not only aired it, but devoted several minutes to discussing the rediculousness of our situation. They at first also though "Fair Use will save us" but alas I sent them a follow up email, which they read on their show, and it explained why even that doesn't do it. Overall, I didn't get any help, but I'm glad to add my voice to a huge number of group leaders who have trouble getting stuff done because of restrictive copyright laws. Also, I'm glad they let me use their show as a sounding board for such frustration.

I will say that I have an idea which could solve the whole issue. If all the copyright major holders (as almost all of them are conglomerated together into big companies) could get together and put up a website that listed all of their works, individuals and groups could enter their usage information and pay a nominal fee for a kind of e-ticket. That e-ticket could then be placed at the place of works usage and everyone would know it was legit. The current system is too complex for a group to quickly do anything that requires a license and I think the copyright holders would probably make more money if they simple constructed a site like this. They could even monetize it by linking it to sites that sell their content (ala Amazon).

Anyway, that is my rant and I hope you will all check out Buzz Out Loud, because as podcasts of indeterminant length go, they're the top!

(if you're interested, my call and email were played on episodes 591 and 592 respectively - toward the end)

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Review: Grooveshark

After hearing about it from CNET's Buzz Out Loud podcast, I decided to try out Grooveshark, which is a new service that aims to clean up the world of P2P without becoming a puppet of the RIAA. Unlike some of the other P2P networks that used to be illegal, got taken to court, and then became clean as a way to vindicate themselves, Grooveshark is nobly trying to start clean and not suck at the same time. In order to do this, they plan to deal with the fundamental problem with file-sharing...the artists don't get paid. On the flip side, they need to make money and so does their user base, so their motto has become "Everybody gets paid."

To do this, Grooveshark has set up their site so that new users can download the Sharkbyte client (which is fairly lightweight in terms of system resources), which can then be directed to upload all of the MP3, OGG, or FLAC files located in a specified folder. Grooveshark then takes those shared tracks and marks them as available for download. Users that want to get those tracks can pay 99 cents and download it via the same client. That money then gets split between the record company that owns the song, Grooveshark, and surprisingly, the user who initially shared the music. Instead of penalizing the file-sharer, he or she is paid for putting in the effort to sell that song to another user. Right now the going rate for sharing a song is 25 cents per sale, which can add up to free tracks fairly quickly.

I have gone through these steps, though I haven't bought any music yet, and have a few comments on the model, the site, and how it all fits in with the state of file-sharing. It seems like a good idea at the start, but there are a few roadblocks that may slow down the adoption of this kind of system.

The most obvious of these roadblocks is that the model has to be able to compete with "free." In other words, Limewire-like services offer relatively high-quality music (videos and other media too) at no cost to the user. Of course, these services are heavily infested with viruses and there is no unified way to name the files so locating what you want can be difficult. BitTorrent networks have less problems with viruses, but the difficulty of understanding how the files are organized and which torrent sites to use is too challenging for many users. Grooveshark and other legit models of its generation will need to rely heavily on the quality, ease of use, and reliability of their services to draw users away from piracy and on to a paid model.

As far as I have seen (though it is a Beta so I don't judge it too harshly), the Grooveshark site is a fairly vast amalgamation of different users, tracks, artists, and forums that do not mesh well together. When searching for a song, for instance, the results bring up every instance of that song (especially when there are different spellings and capitalizations) individually and generally make it hard to determine which file is the one you want. Each instance of each song, album, or artist has its own page, which further complicates things, as they are all generally the same, have little content, and needlessly subdivide the body of each artist.

I had some trouble with the client, which again is a Beta so it is fairly understandable, so I went onto the forums. Sadly, my Grooveshark account is different from the forum account, so I had to go through the process of registering again in order to get forum help. This is not the only site that does this, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. Anyway, after I got access to the forum, I looked to see if anyone else had had my problem. Not finding anything, I entered in my problem and waited for a stronger geek to help me. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be that many users on the forum yet, and no one directly with Grooveshark has addressed my problem. Here the Beta rule does not apply. I have used many partially developed programs and web services and have almost always had a quick and informative response. Developers typically love to get bugs worked out ASAP after they go public. I can't say the same thing about Grooveshark's staff. [Ok, it seems that the gods of fate are against me today, because within seconds of posting this up, Grooveshark's help desk got back to me via email and is working with me to solve the problem. It still took a while, but I am retracting the "not getting back to me" part. :P]

I have to say that as of now I am fairly dissappointed with Grooveshark because their website is an Ajax filled mess. Also, the lack of easy [quick] bug support makes me wary of purchasing anything from the site. Still, I am idealistic and I hold out in hopes that as more users join and as Grooveshark gets itself settled, that the quality of the site will increase to a point that pirates will think about putting down cold, hard cash for what they could find elsewhere for free. There you have it...feel free to request an invite (I have 4 left) or post questions if you have any!

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The iPhone Experience (Part 1)

Hey Adoring Readers!

Aside from making up overstatements to greet you with, I have been busy procuring an iPhone.  In fact, I have one docked next to my laptop.  Despite the frequent mentions of mighty Apple, Inc, I'm not really an Apple fanboy, but more of a tech enthusiast who can appreciate a nice form factor.  After feeling the need for a convergence device for just about forever, I have finally caved and selected the 8GB iPhone. 

I'll come right out and say that the $200 price drop totally sucked me in and it was only one week later that I went into the Apple store and got one.  I'm NOT impressed at all with the purchasing experience in a busy Apple store.  There is a small checkout counter with a long line and the occasional salesperson who may be able to sell you a product you've yet to get your hands on....if you're paying the correct way....otherwise you must stand in line.  The words "confusing" and "madhouse" come to mind.  Weird sales experience aside, the box-opening was very nice, as with all Apple products, and everything for set-up and activation was fairly straightforward.  It was nice doing everything through iTunes and syncing with the iPhone is actually easier than syncing with a normal iPod, since an iPod has to go through the trouble of mounting a the same time that iTunes wants its attention.  I did find the new dock a bit tricky, though, as the iPhone kept losing the connection and reconnecting.  This has stopped happening so I assume the plug was having trouble connecting up fully the first few times.

I've had about a two complete days with my new phone/iPod/PDA and I have to say I am almost completely satisfied.  All of the apps work as advertised, the camera looks great, the videos from YouTube play very cleanly, and the setting are pretty darn clear.  The phone is nice, but then again, I had a free phone before that had pretty bad call quality.  The iPod function is by far the best feature.  Built-in coverflow is nice looking, but doesn't add much value to the interface.  The regular interface for the iPod screen is very nice though and almost fully lives up to its predicessor.  One complaint that I have is that when the iPod is playing and you need to pause, it can be a pain because whenever the screen sleeps it needs to first be unlocked before the pause can be pressed.  This takes more time than I like and I wish they had added a play/pause button on the side or something (this way it would mirror the iPod's functionality when the user cannot see the screen but can touch the wheel).

Finally, the web browser.  Safari is not my favorite browser on a PC, but on the iPhone it is very well suited.  The "tabs" feature that lets you switch windows works very well and the same can be said for the bookmarks.  I have been using AppMarks, an Ajax application for the iPhone which acts as a homepage and can take you to any number of the new and innovated applications being developed for the iPhone.  After only a little bit of time I had some trouble with the app, but when I contacted the developers, they replied quickly and solved all my problems post haste.  There is now way to set a homepage (yet), but I hope that feature is next on Apple's short list.

This is only part 1 of my review of the iPhone.  It has impressed me so far, but I plan to write another one of these after some time has passed and I've discovered all of its hidden features (or stubbed my toe on its hidden flaws).  Till then, enjoy your iPhone (or lack thereof)!

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Apple Update Roll-Out

On September 5th, Apple, Inc. had their first interesting announcement in a while (unless iWork and iLife get you all riled up).  They unveiled the latest mutation of their growing iPod family...with 5 different devices.  I'm just gonna run down the info, because you have better things to do than listen to play-by-play analysis of everything Apple makes:

• The iPod Shuffle now comes in red, as a part of their charitable line-up (scroll down after the jump).  It also comes in very pastel colors now.
  
• The iPod Nano got the biggest face-lift (or drop), as the shape was made into more of a square with a larger, video screen and a pretty amazing thinness.  It comes in 8 and 16 GB sizes, though 8 GB model only comes in silver.  It seems to have basically the same software features of the old Video iPod.
• I say "old" Video iPod because the thing that was called that is now the iPod Classic.  Basically, this is your iPod that you grew up loving, it just has video and a nice metal coat (like the Nano).  The primary use of this iPod is the fact that it can store either 80GB or 160GB, which is the largest capacity to date for an iPod.  Those who have complained that even the largest iPod is too small for their portable library now have a solution.  While one might argue that this is good for video lovers, the screen size is still pretty puny compared to....
• ...The iPod Touch!   Yes, Apple has taken the iPhone, stripped out the phone portion, doubled the HD size and released their new creation to the public.  It has WiFi and Safari so it can still browse the web, but it doesn't have any of the smartphone-type features. 
  
• Also, both the iPod Touch and the iPhone will have a new "buy iTunes stuff over WiFi" feature after the next firmware update (within the month, I believe).  The media people seem to be pretty excited about this, but I've never been convinced that mobile content is really what the public hungers for (I know I don't).
• And finally the iPhone.....is cheaper now.  Yes, the nasty 500/600 dollar price that was so harshly critisized by the tech community has been dropped 200 dollars.  This drastic cut to $299 for the 4GB and $399 for the 8GB models was very smart in my mind.  Even though a lot of early adopters/cult members will be angry about paying too much for the product, the higher price created a sense of value for the iPhone that is now much higher than the sale price.  In my humble opinion, I think the iPhone will do extremely well in the next two seasons, as people begin to shop for the holidays and as the Apple line-up's refresh attracts new attention. 
  
• Sad iPhone owners, fear not!  If you just bought one, just return it and buy it at the cheaper price.  If you bought it when it just came out, Mad-Dog Steve Jobs has issued a statement that you are all to receive $100 store credits toward anything at the Apple Store.  This presumably will work for the iTunes store too, as you could just buy an iTunes gift card at the store.  While this doesn't totally make up for the massive price drop, it will certainly soften the blow for Apple's most aggressive buyers. 
  

Wow, so a lot of crazy stuff.  There are a few things like overpriced ringtones and a partnership with Starbucks, but I say a big "meh" to both of those.  Also, where are The Beatles you ask?  Not on the iTunes Store.  It seems that Apple, Inc. and Apple Corp. are still working out their differences (or waiting for the next big release in October).  Yes, that's right, there is another announcement coming in October...the release of Leopard and Office '08.  This is going to be an exciting holiday season for Apple.

Oh...I'm totally gonna be getting an iPhone now, so obviously the price drop hooked me in!

Sources:
Engadget live-blogged the whole thing
It's all for real on the Apple Store

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